Cafe Elixir reflects
my interest in shaping conventional form with asymmetrical structure,
mixing and juxtaposing the conventional with the unconventional, and logically
related, and its style is intentionally retroactive.
The opening bars of three paraphrastic
chordal moves connected tritonally - A to Bb, E to F, B to C - obtain from
chromaticism rather than from standard scaletone practice. Conventional
sensibility is finally relieved in the 6th and 7th bars - B going to E
- but only briefly. This is followed by two asymmetrically juxtaposed
2-bar paraphrastic patterns - F- to D7, Bb- to Gb7 to (ah, at last a familiar
resolve) BM7 - and so forth.
The bridge, though somewhat
more conventional, echoes in its opening bars the opening bars of Section
A, but obvertly by way of three chromatically shifting tritones - D to
Ab, Db to G, C to F# - each tritone shift connected by a standard scaletone-related
resolve.
Try it. Once you’ve accustomed
yourself to its particularities, I think you’ll enjoy playing it.
I do.
NOTE
Each note in the music is
natural unless otherwise
indicated by an accidental
or tied to an accidental.